The invention concerns a system for automated monitoring of items selected by shoppers in a market, and also detection of whether the items are placed into a shopping basket. Such monitoring on a large scale allows one to draw valuable inferences about the behavior of large numbers of shoppers.
Radio Frequency Identification Devices, RFIDs, are commercially available. They store data, and, when interrogated by a scanner located in the vicinity of the RFID, transmit the data to the scanner.
RFIDs are sometimes used as labels for products, and, in this capacity, are somewhat analogous to Uniform Product Code (UPC) labels, which are the familiar xe2x80x9cbar code labels.xe2x80x9d That is, the RFIDs are attached to items in a retail market. Each RFID contains data which identifies its item: for example, that data may contain the UPC number of the item. A shopper selects items for purchase, and delivers them at a check-out station. At the station, an RFID scanner interrogates the items, and ascertains from the RFIDs (1) the identity of each item and then (2) the price.
One advantage of using the RFIDs is that items need not be individually presented to a scanner. The scanner can poll the RFIDs present in a shopping basket as a group.
The invention provides an additional use for the RFIDs.
An object of the invention is to provide an improved RFID.
A further object of the invention is to provide an improved method of operating a retail market.
A further object of the invention is to provide a shopping basket having an RFID scanner attached, for taking inventory of items within the basket.
A further object of the invention is to provide a shopping basket having an RFID scanner attached, for identifying items removed from a nearby shelf.
In one form of the invention, an RFID is used for two purposes. One is to identify a product for pricing at a check-out station. A second is to identify a product at the time when it is removed from a shelf in the market, independent of the check-out process.
One purpose of the second identification is to collect data on customer behavior, for the benefit of the owner of the market, and the manufacturer of the items.
In another form of the invention, a third use of the RFID is to identify a product placed into a shopping basket, again independent of the check-out process, for further data gathering.